Newmont clears Telfer tailings hurdles

Greatland Gold has made “significant progress” towards finalising its acquisition of the Telfer mine and Havieron project, with the UK miner meeting two of the conditions needed to complete the deal.

When Greatland and Newmont struck its $US475 deal earlier this month, it was on the condition that Newmont complete the remediation of the Telfer tailings storage facility 8 (TFS8) – which cracked earlier this year – so the deposition of tailings can recommence for 14 consecutive days.

Now, Newmont has informed Greatland that such remediation works at TSF8 have been completed and the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety has lifted its prohibition notice on TSF8.

As a result, Newmont has restarted processing operations at Telfer and recommenced the deposition of tailings into TSF8.

“Greatland congratulates Newmont on this important achievement and the restart of processing and tailings deposition, which is the result of significant work and a robust approach taken by the Newmont team to investigate and resolve the TSF8 issues,” Greatland said.

Telfer is located 400km from Port Hedland in Western Australia, while, located 45km to the east of Telfer, Havieron was discovered by Greatland in 2018 and is one of the largest copper-gold deposits to have been recently discovered in the Paterson region of WA.

Havieron was originally being advanced under an unincorporated 30:70 joint venture originally signed by Greatland and Newcrest in November 2020. Then Newmont inherited the 70 per cent stake in Havieron, as well as management of the project, when it acquired Newcrest last year.

Having already owned 30 per cent of Havieron and Telfer being in close proximity, Greatland became the obvious company to take over both operations in order “to create a world-class mining and processing hub in the emerging Paterson Range province”.

Greatland expects to officially acquire Telfer and Havieron by the end of 2024.

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